The backlash regarding Stephen A Smith’s Shohei Ohtani comments was fast and furious, even by modern social media standards. Smith, no stranger to controversy (some would argue much of his career is built upon tossing purposely “out there” takes into the media to drum up a response) recently made headlines for his stance on Ohtani, who is Japanese, using an interpreter when speaking to the media.
His full quote “I understand that baseball is an international sport itself in terms of participation, but when you talk about an audience gravitating to the tube or to the ballpark, to actually watch you, I don’t think it helps that the number one face is a dude that needs an interpreter, so you can understand what the hell he’s saying in this country,” rang especially tone deaf during a period where random acts of violence in America against Asian Americans is on the rise.
Whether it was by his own realization, or by virtue of his employer “volun-telling” him to apologize on air and on social media, Smith owned up to the statements and apologized not only for his insensitive remarks regarding Ohtani, but also to the Nigerian basketball team whom he also had strong remarks towards this week following their victory over USA basketball:
According to a report in the New York Post, Stephen A. Smith is currently ESPN’s highest paid employee with a reported annual salary of $12M. In the era of talking head sports anchors, Smith’s name is perhaps the most recognizable in North America. This notoriety however, has led ESPN to trot out Smith in a variety of contexts to add a recognizable name to its sports coverage in recent years. While some situations are natural fits such as basketball, and football, others such as his recent foray into MMA and Hockey have drawn more groans than praise.
This reliance on Stephen A. Smith to create headlines and generate downloads/clicks/streams is a double edged sword. While he’s made a career of occasionally crossing the line (see his views on the Ray Rice situation or Chip Kelly insinuations), the fact of the matter is that ESPN appears to be alright with the occasional dust up, as it ultimately results in more eyeballs on their product.
Yet the more that ESPN pushes Smith into uncharted waters, the more likely he becomes to “step in it”, talking about sports and storylines he doesn’t fully grasp. Ohtani is the perfect example of just such a gaffe.
While you’d be hard pressed to find many who would say the MLB does an adequate job of marketing their stars (Mike Trout’s career will be a case study in failure to capture a market with a generational talent when all is said and done), the amount of viewers, sponsors, merchandise sales, and more that come from Japan as a result of Ohtani’s success is something teams would kill for in today’s sports world. Why do you think the NBA has poured so much time and effort into marketing the game in China?
Baseball is perhaps the most regional of all the major sports leagues in the US, so for the Angels to have not only their Southern California fanbase, but an entire country across the Pacific pulling for them is not an insignificant matter. In his comments you can see the point that Smith is trying to fumble his way towards: i.e. baseball needs a marketable star. However, bringing race or language barriers into the matter overlooks the fact that baseball as a whole needs to work on its marketing arm, rather than expecting Ohtani to play the role of “Golden Boy” for the league.
It’s been decades since Major League Baseball could truly call itself America’s Pastime. The NFL and NBA have soared past it in terms of popularity for a multitude of reasons, none of which have anything to do with Ohtani. Yet because Smith is unfamiliar with the MLB, its marketing woes and failure at the highest level of sport to modernize the game, he incorrectly assumed the source of the issue stemmed from the player side, rather than the league itself.
By no means is this an excuse for Smith to say what he said regarding Ohtani or the Nigerian Basketball team, but it should serve as a warning to ESPN that perhaps plugging Smith into every sport under the sun and expecting magic to happen isn’t realistic. In much the same way you’d probably choose a book about art written by Picasso or Van Gogh over Bill Belichick or Mike Tomlin, just because Stephen A. Smith makes a living by talking about sports 24/7 doesn’t make him an expert on every sport.
John Madden was a phenomenal football mind. But I wouldn’t call him up to talk about the intricacies of synchronized swimming. Unfortunately, until we see something truly over the line come out of Smith’s mouth, something that today’s cancel culture wouldn’t stand for, we’ve likely not seen the last of Smith making cameos at anything ESPN has the broadcasting rights for. There’s too much money at stake, and they’re too heavily invested into Smith not to use him at every opportunity.
Instead, it’s just a matter of time until we see the next iteration of an apology for crossing a line issued by Smith. And hopefully for his sake, the next one doesn’t cost him more than a few days of public shame like this one did.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner